


Undertale Long Road: To Boldly Grow

by WolvenOne



Series: Undertale: Long Road AU [2]
Category: Undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolvenOne/pseuds/WolvenOne
Summary: This takes place a few months before Undertale: Long Road





	Undertale Long Road: To Boldly Grow

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place a few months before Undertale: Long Road

  
  
**Undertale Long Road: To Boldly Grow**

**By: Nathan Weaver  
Forward by: [Ononymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/works)  
**

* * *

  
  
_Cold…_ _  
  
_

It was something new, at least.

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

And it was a feeling. Not the one he wanted, but…

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

Shouldn't he be shivering? Oh right, flowers don't do that.

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

A desire to sleep called him with an icy bed.

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

He'd keep his promise at least. He'd leave them alone.

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

And maybe if he slept, he'd find peace…

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

"...iel...wey?!"

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

His numb brain turns to the sound. Those eyes…

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

"Alphys, over here!"

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

"Oh m-my! Here's the pot."

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

He's lifted, tenderly, and put down. Then the whole world seems to rise. A heat fills his body. His new container was prepared for the weather.

 _Cold…_ _  
  
_

"It's okay, you're safe." Those eyes. Full of relief.

 _...Warm..._  
  
\----  
  
“Cold-cold, _super cold!”_ Plowing through the door Frisk rushed in and half-jumped around in place, only relaxing when the indoor air chased away the arctic chill. “Aaaaaaand saaaaafe!” Drawing out the words, she quickly went from rigid to practically slumping over on her feet.

 

“My child, you are such a funny thing!” Following closely, Toriel closed the door behind Frisk and stepped in. “You would think it was, what is the phrase, a bazillion degrees below outside?”  
  
“It nearly is!” Frisk said, boot stomping helpfully to prove her case. She meant it too. It wasn’t as cold as the ruins had been, but there was no wind there to make it worse. She knew she should be used to it by now. But this was the first winter since the Monster’s came to the surface, and it was colder than any she could remember.

 

“So, what about you?” Frisk asked, turning her attention to the en-scarfed plant in her arms. “You think it’s cold too, right?”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Flowey said as he looked around. “It’s like an ice box out there.”

Body ridgid, Frisk leapt up onto her toes in triumph. “See! You just can’t feel it because of your fur!” A bystander may have thought Frisk was being insensitive, but truth told she wouldn’t mind some fur right now. Heck, It would certainly beat freezing her fingers off anyway.

 

“Uh, excuse me,” Flowey said with a narrowing of his eyes. “But, what the heck is this place anyway? You said this was a surprise?”  
  
“A-yeppers,” Frisk said grinning “C’mon, take a guess!”

 

“Oh for crying out loud!” Blowing out a breath, the little flower looked up at a huge marble hall decorated with colorful banners. From where he sat, he tried to read what was written on the one closest. But it was still pretty far, and he couldn’t make it out.

 

“I give up!” He said a moment later. “Where have you dragged me to now?”

 

Before she could answer though, Toriel chimed in instead. “The Eagleton Museum of History.”

“Mooooom!” Frisk whined. “I wanted to tell him!”

  
Hearing this, Toriel couldn’t help wearing a taken-back hanggoat expression. “My apologies, I did not realize…”  
  
Before she could finish though, Flowey cut her off. “Yes, yes, you are both terribly considerate! Tell me though. I’m just a little curious. Why the heck are we’re here exactly!?”  
  
“Because it’s fun?” Blinking, Frisk looked back and forth between Flowey and the elegant marble fixtures of the hall. He’d been pretty darn apathetic since coming to the surface, but she’d hoped he’d show at least a little interest in this.  
  
Starry-eyed, Toriel quickly chimed in as she looked around gawking at everything. “Yes, quite fun. I cannot imagine a better way to spend a Saturday!”  
  
“Me either!” Staring at all the banners and displays, Frisk could hardly contain her excitement. “I can’t wait to explore everything!”

 

“Young lady, you are not wandering off on your own again!”  
  
“But you take forever!” Frisk didn’t want to be too harsh, but the last time they went to the library Toriel spent seven hours going through the books about molluscs . “Besides, we made it in early. There’s hardly anybody here yet!”  
  
“Fine then, you can explore for fifteen minutes. But I want you to check in after that, I mean it!”  
  
“Deal!” Not wasting any time, Frisk scurried off with her little potted passenger in tow. “C’mon Flowey!” she said brightly. “I can’t wait to show you everything!”

* * *

 

Maybe she couldn’t wait, but Flowey certainly could. Everything they saw was met with an intense indifference. Walking around the museum, Frisk had hoped that something, anything, would manage to get his attention. But now their fifteen minutes were nearly up, and not even a full size model of the Wright Flyer could do it!  
  
“Oh come on!” Frisk said, her voice high as she waved at the replica hanging from the ceiling. “It’s the first airplane ever! The thing that took men to the skies. You honestly can’t say that sounds amazing?”

  
“Why would I?” Flowey asked, while barely even looking at it. “The whole thing looks like a piece of junk. Are you sure that thing flew?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I’m pretty sure it did!” Letting out a breath, Frisk spotted another exhibit and walked over to it. “What about this?” she asked, pointing at a painting. “This guy was a King like Asgore.”  
  
“Yeah but dad was so much better at it!” Caustic as his words were, Frisk couldn’t really dispute them. After reading the plaque below the painting, it was clear this King Charles guy was a piece of work. Asgore might have made some mistakes, but at least his subjects didn’t _execute_ him!

 

“Okay Mister Smarty Pot! Have you seen anything here you actually _do_ like?”

 

“The exit sign was interesting!”

“Ha ha, very funny!” Frisk didn’t want to admit it, but she actually did have to stifle a chuckle at that one. Flowey was thorn sharp when he wanted to be, but she still didn’t want to encourage this behavior. “What about the dinosaur bones? Those were neat”

 

“They were naked!” Flowey’s eyes nearly bugged out at the declaration. “You humans are weirdos. Do you know that!?”

 

“Yeah, it’s how we keep from going crazy.”  
  
“Making a looooot of assumptions there!”  
  
“Oh shush!” This time, Frisk couldn’t hide her grin. “Really though, you didn’t enjoy any of that?”  
  
“Sorry,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “It’s not for me.”  
  
Not knowing what the heck _that_ was supposed to mean, Frisk shrugged and continued moving forward. “We’ll just have to keep on looking then.” And she would too. If it were up to her, she’d scour the museum if she had to. If it snapped Flowey out of the funk he’d been in, it would well be worth the effort.  
  
Except she couldn’t. They really needed to get back to Toriel soon. Slowing down Frisk started to started remind Flowey about that, only to pause when she noticed him staring at something.

 

“Uh, hello?” Trying to get Flowey’s attention, the young child jostled his pot to no avail. His gaze seemed to be drawn to something like an electromagnet, and when she followed that gaze, she could instantly see what that something was.

 

‘ _The Horrors of War._ ’ Those terrible words loomed over Frisk like a death sentence, causing her to shift uncomfortably as she gaped at the images beneath them. Nearly every one of those pictures made her feel sick, like she was seeing something she should not have.  
  
But for Flowey, all those pictures did was make him shake his head in disgust.

 

“My, what a lovely little world you’ve brought me into!” he said, finally breaking his silence. “Seriously, I would’ve been better off back in my hole.”

 

“Whoa, hey, that’s not fair. You were doing terrible alone!”  
  
“I was just fine until you came along!”  
  
“You. Were. Frozen!” Staring down at him with a stony expression, the plant withered beneath her gaze. “What were you doing there anyway? Couldn’t you have left for Hotland, or something?”

  
“Hey!” Flowey snapped. “That’s personal! You promised, remember?!”  
  
Standing straight, Frisk went more than a little bit pale and practically slapped herself. She _had_ promised not to ask him about that. Along with keeping his secret from his parents. At the time, she hadn’t really thought much of it. But since then, the whole thing had started gnawing at her. What was it that Flowey didn’t want to talk about? Whatever that was it couldn’t be that bad, could it?  
  
Like it or not though, the promise had been made. She couldn’t go back on it now.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Letting out a breath, Frisk held out a hand in surrender. “I shouldn’t have brought it up like that. But you know you weren’t being fair before!”  
  
“Oh was I now!” Narrowing his eyes the little plant looked up at Frisk, his expression primed for confrontation. “Tell me then, what about that wasn’t fair? I may be a little horror, but how are humans any different!?”  
  
“You are not a horror!” Sighing, Frisk looked back at the display behind her and started moving away from it. Much as she protested, she knew full well that Flowey wasn’t wrong. Humans did have a dark side, but that wasn’t all there was to it. “We’re just, we’re not perfect you know. We humans just mess up sometimes!”

 

“You can say that again!”  
  
“Flowey, I know snarkasm is the way you get through life. But could you give it a break for five seconds?”  
  
“Five, four…”

 

“Great, I’ll keep going then!” Trying to ignore that Frisk took a deep breath to steady herself and continued. “Like I said, we’re not perfect. The world isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t mean we give up on everything!”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Flowey asked, sounding almost angry about it. “This world is full of nothing but heartache! Why should I keep living in it. Why stay around when I don’t have a reason to?”

 

Through the cracks in his utter indifference, Frisk noticed pain seeping out despite his efforts. It clicked with her: This was nothing to do with some random museum piece or even the crimes of humanity. This was about him. This was about the future of this world and how he didn’t have a place in it.  
  
Without a soul, without even the hope of getting it back one day, life had to feel almost pointless and utterly devoid of meaning. Realizing all this, Frisk couldn’t help feeling like she was out of her depth. There were issues here that were simply beyond her, but she still felt like she had to try.

“Here’s the thing though,” she began uneasily. Trying to be reassuring, not knowing if she was succeeding or not. “Life’s not a game where the goals are laid out for you. There is no princess to save, or tyrant to topple. We have to find our own reasons for living. Our own future to work for. It isn’t a bad thing, it just means we’re free to find happiness. Happiness that is all our own.”  
  
Instead of cheering up though, Flowey only sneered at all this. “My my, how wonderfully, _trite_ !” Voice dripping with venom, the tiny flower glared at her with eyes full of something just short of anger. “I don’t need your lectures, Frisk! You keep talking about my future, about my happiness, but what would you know!? You’re just a spoiled little brat. A kid that’s never been hurt a single day, in her short, pampered, _life_ !”  
  
Stopping in her tracks, it was all Frisk could do not not to recoil like she’d just been hit. “That's not. You know that isn’t true.” Voice catching, the child’s hands began to shake. Fingers going pale as she clamped down on the pot and forced all the blood from them.  
  
Glancing up at her, even Flowey must have realized something was wrong. Because the more he studied her the more the fight fled from him. “S-sorry,” turning away, the little flower looked about as repentant as a creature without emotions could be. “I take it there’s something I don’t know about?”  
  
Needing time to think, Frisk nodded an affirmative. “Everyone has something that they’d rather forget.” For her, it was the memory of long lonely days holding onto an iron gate. As horrible and painful as that reminder was though, it soon gave way to a melancholic smile as she recalled all the wonderful people in her life. She’d found her happiness, all she wanted now, was to share it.  
  
“Look,” Frisk began while moving forward. “What you said before wasn’t wrong. There is a lot of painful stuff in this world, but that isn’t all there is to it!” As they talked, the two of them rounded a corner and found themselves in a whole new part of the museum. Complete with fresh displays, that made Frisk’s eyes light up as she saw them. “Besides,” she said while gesturing at them all. “Just look at all this amazing stuff in it!”  
  
Stretched out in front of them were pedestals showing off all sorts of things. Art, ships, wagons, microscopes and more. Most of them were replicas, but even though lacking in authenticity they stood as monuments to a history of achievement.

 

“This world is full of heroes. Explorers that pushed boundaries. Doctors curing people with new medicines. Artists that fueled our imaginations.” Growing more excited, Frisk pointed at each of the exhibits one by one; stopping only when she could name no more. “All these people worked hard to do what they did. “Not only to make the world a better place, but to find some meaning in their lives as well. All that toil and effort. Don’t you think that counts for something?”

 

“Who knows!” Flowey said with a shrug. “Even if that’s true though, I still can’t get excited about it. I don’t care. I _can’t_ care. When you look at these things, it means something. But, for me, I just feel empty. There’s nothing out there for me.”  
  
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I really get it. I can understand why it feels that way though.” Feeling uneasy Frisk looked back to the displays, wondering what it had to be like to live in a world you didn’t feel part of. It was hard to imagine, but it seemed like that had to be lonely.  
  
Frisk might not have known about that other stuff, but maybe there was something she could do there. Something to help him feel a little less alone in the world. Thinking of that, she took a deep breath, and opened her mouth to find out.  
  
“But, you know,” she said a bit slowly. “No matter what it feels likes, I still don’t think that’s true. There’s one thing in this world just for you. One thing you will always have, even if all else fails.”

 

“Oh, and what would that magical wonder object be?”  
  
“A friend!”

 

“Wow!” Flowey said with a snort. “Do you practice at being cute or does it all come naturally?!”  
  
Frisk just shrugged at that. “I’m a kid, I’m pretty sure it’s a defense mechanism.”

 

“That... makes sense actually!” Furrowing his brow, Flowey sat there pondering that for a second before shaking his head as he cleared his throat. “But really, you actually want to be my friend? I’m not just a weird charity case to you?”

 

Frisk blinked at the weight of accusation in the question. Genuine indignation was standing to attention. She’d never thought of Flowey that way. Not ever. The more she thought about it though, the more sense it made that he would feel that way, for certain definitions of “feel”.  
  
Lacking a healthy emotional context, he probably couldn’t read this kind of thing very well. Still, she couldn’t exactly walk away from this. Not without making her intentions clear.  
  
“Look, I care about you,” she said, leaning in. “As far as I’m concerned we’re friends already!”

 

“Oh you have definitely been practicing!” Narrowing his eyes, Flowey waved an accusing leaf at her then chuckled as an embarrassed smile came across his face. “Thanks though, that doesn’t mean as much to me as it should but it does mean something!”

 

“You know what, I’m glad to hear it!” Holding Flowey’s pot at face level, Frisk looked at her now official friend in the eye before letting her lips spread into a grin. “As your friend though, do you think I could ask for a favor?”  
  
“Oh no.” Visibly wincing, the flower took in a great big breath before letting it escape as a groan. “Alright, let's hear it.”  
  
“ _Try_ to enjoy yourself?”  
  
“You’re a real slave driver, you know that?” Most people faced with that glare of his might have thought Flowey was furious. The effect was kinda undermined by his big cheeky smile though. He was probably, possibly, absolutely just being difficult.  
  
“Fine, fine,” he said with a pout. “I’ll _try_ to enjoy myself, but I make no promises!”

 

“Hey as long as you're trying!” Still beaming, Frisk started to look around and abruptly realized what time it was. “We should probably be going back.” They were way past the deadline Toriel had given them, and if they didn’t get back soon she would probably start worrying about them.  
  
She might even get angry, and angry goat-mom meant no pie. Frisk couldn’t let that happen!  
  
“We’d better find Toriel fast!” Frisk said, looking around. “I’d hate for her to find us f...”

 

“My child, where have you been!”  
  
“...darnit.”

 

Knowing all too well that Toriel was behind her, Frisk put on her most adorable expression and turned around to greet her. “Oh, hi Mom!” she said, her face practically sparkling. “What brings you here?”  
  
Abruptly stopping, Toriel blinked down at her adopted little one before slowly raising an eyebrow. “My child,” she said, struggling not to grin. “Are you trying to be cute?”

  
“Is it working?”  
  
“Quite well I must say!” Tilting her head from side to side, Toriel inspected her daughter while nodding in appreciation. She was a cute, bright, and well-behaved child. Nobody would ever deny that. “You are still losing your pie privileges though.”  
  
Clearly horrified, Frisk’s adorable little expression vanished. “No. not the pie privileges. Not my precious pie privileges!”

 

Seeing this, the corners of Toriel’s muzzle curled into a grin. “Hmm, perhaps a warning then?”  
  
Looking bewildered by this spectacle, Flowey glanced between Toriel and the girl holding him. “Wait a second,” he asked with his brow furrowed. “Not to break up, whatever the heck this is. But this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t such a slowpoke!”

 

“There is some truth to that,” Toriel said with a sigh. “Alas, these old bones, they do not move like they used to.” Faking a groan the former monarch arched her back, making it pop on cue.  
  
“Ah, it’s official then,” Flowey said, sounding sarcastic despite the slight wince he was trying to hide. “Old people are disgusting.”

 

After that, walking around and looking at exhibits was the order of the day. Mind you, as far as Frisk was concerned, they weren't doing it fast enough. After her failure to check in, there was no way Toriel was going to let her explore alone again. Every time they stopped at something though, Mom wanted to study it. To examine it from every angle and read deep into its history.  
  
Frisk liked the museum, but spending twenty minutes at every little display was driving her nuts! Toriel must’ve noticed too. Because after spending a particularly long eternity reading about the industrial revolution, she saw how restless Frisk had grown and very much looked guilty about it.  
  
“Oh my goodness child. I am sorry!” Clearly embarrassed, Toriel brought her hands up to hide her face. “So much has happened while we were gone. It is easy to get caught up in it.”  
  
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” That’s not to say Frisk wasn’t getting antsy, but she was trying to be patient about it. “I just don’t have your... What’s the word for focusing on stuff for a long time?”  
  
“An attention span?”  
  
Hearing this, Frisk quickly snapped her fingers. “Right that, I don’t have your attention span yet.”  
  
“Well, you have been very good!” Smiling brightly, Toriel took Frisk by the hand and walked with her down the hallway. “How about a reward. Is there someplace you would like to go for lunch?”  
  
“I’m good with whatever. What about you?” Expecting one of Flowey’s snappy responses, Frisk glanced down only to see him staring at something. “Uh, hello?”  That having failed, she leaned in and loudly cleared her throat. _“Ahem!”_

 

"I didn’t do it!” Flowey cried out, startled. “I’m innocent I swear!”  
  
Seeing this, Frisk blinked. “Okay, I don’t know what _that_ was about, but you really were out of it there huh?”  
  
“Was not! I was looking at that thing. That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it?”  Following his vine, Frisk looked where her friend was pointing only to see a site right out of the history books.

 

Frowning in thought, Toriel stepped in a little closer. “I believe I read about this. It was said to be mankind's greatest achievement, was it not?”  
  
“What was?”  
  
Not sure how to answer, Frisk ended up only shrugging. “I guess. I wasn’t really there for it.”  
  
“There. For. What!?”  
  
Fascinated, Toriel craned her head around to study it. “I would love to have been there myself. Oh, do you know if there is a video?” While this was all going on though, a specific flower was clearly losing his patience.

  
“Fine then!” Flowey said in angry huff. ”Ignore the flower. Pretend he doesn’t exist. It’s not like I actually care or anything!”

 

Blushing, Frisk looked just as sheepish as Toriel for once. “S-sorry!” Neither of them had meant to ignore Flowey. But, it was easy to get caught in the moment. After all, it wasn’t every day that you got to see a life-sized recreation of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing site. Complete with a lander and even an astronaut.  
  
“You can apologize by telling me what that thing is!” Even upset, Flowey could hardly look away from it. His tone of voice was the only thing disguising how entranced he was by the display. Everything else was making him an open book. “I see stars, so it has something to do with astronomy right?”  
  
“Kinda,” Frisk frankly wasn’t sure where to begin. Mostly because she wasn’t sure what Flowey knew on the subject. He’d told her that he’d read a lot in the Underground, but apparently there weren’t that many books on human history. Especially the more recent stuff. So maybe starting with this basics would be good.  
  
“Okay, so you know what the moon is right?”  
  
Flowey only rolled his eyes at that.“Yes-yes! What about it?”

 

“Well, see that thing over there?” Frisk pointed at the lander. “That’s used for taking people to it.”

Still staring at her, Flowey sat there and slowly blinked. He didn’t get it. You could tell, that just by looking at him. He knew the words, could piece them together in a way that made perfect sense. Yet whenever he ran them through the engine of his mind, he kept on getting the same message. Error. Error. Flowey.exe has encountered a problem and needs to restart.  
  
“Wait a sec,” Flowey holding up a leaf, Flowey gave himself half a moment to process. “I think I heard that wrong. Taking people to the what now?!”  
  
“The Moon. You know, the round thing in the sky?”  
  
“I know what the moon is!” Flowey snapped. “But there’s no way humans could land on it. How would they even get there, on top of a giant bottle rocket!?”  
  
“Funny you should mention that...”  
  
Stepping forward, Toriel put a hand on her daughters shoulder. “Please children, do try not to squabble.”

 

Casting her gaze downward, Frisk felt her face burn with embarrassment. “S-sorry momma.” She wasn’t used to being called out like that. But as it turned out, Flowey didn’t care a bit.

“Frisk started it!” he said clearly upset. “She’s trying to trick me!”  
  
“Young man, she was telling the truth.” Leaning down to see him, Toriel smiled at the tiny flower just as his confidence vanished. In all the time Flowey had known his mother, she’d never once lied to him. So as impossible as that claim was, it didn’t seem likely that she’d start doing it now.

 

“But they couldn’t have!” Flowey insisted. “This is the moon we’re talking about!”

 

Standing up straight, Toriel looked up at the replica with an expression that could only be described as admiration. “I had a hard time believing it myself. But this is the truth, whether we choose to accept it or not. We live in a land where humans challenged the impossible and won. Where humanity sacrificed their blood and treasure, to broaden their horizon.”

 

Staring at it, Toriel’s expression became at once both bittersweet and hopeful. Almost as though she was experiencing the pain of and torment the past, alongside dreams of an uncertain future.

 

“Humans are peculiar. For all their mistakes, when I look at things like this I have to believe they will become something amazing one day.” Smiling once more, Toriel turned to pat Frisk on the head. “They might even become as precious as you are, my little one.”  
  
“Mooooooom!” Bowing her head, Frisk looked to the ground trying to hide her face. That didn’t mean she wasn’t happy though. Praise and headpats, yay!

 

“Wait, so all this is real? You’re not trying to trick me!?” Looking between them, Flowey’s face wavered back and forth. Almost as though, he was not certain if he should be skeptical or not.  
  
“Sure it’s real.” Nodding, Frisk pointed at a kiosk built into the base of the display. “Look, I’ll prove it too.” Before Flowey could ask her how exactly she was going to do that, the human child walked over to kiosks touch screen and and hit the play button on it.  
  
Once she did that, a video started playing on it. One of those short educational documentaries you see sometimes. Really, it was pretty standard fare for the most part. Mostly it was just some old footage, starting off with a few shots talking about rocket technology that was made during some war. The footage of soldiers, politicians, and some huge parade fit in with that pretty well.  
  
Really though, Frisk would’ve just assumed they skipped that part. Especially given how Flowey had reacted earlier. Thankfully, it soon moved on to some stirring speech by some old president, followed by engineers working with industrial machinery. She would’ve liked to have heard more of that speech but Flowey didn’t seem that interested.

  
At least, not until he saw the space suits anyway. The second those were on screen, his eyes locked in on them and he leaned in closer to get a better look. It seemed to Frisk, that not only was he trying to figure out what the suits were for, he wanted to know how they worked as well.  
  
Before he could figure it out though, the shot abruptly changed showing an all too familiar rocket

 

“Whoa,” Flowey’s brows went up a notch. “The heck is that thing?” Instead of answering, Frisk only grinned as a countdown started.

 

‘10, 9, 8…’

 

Asking again, Flowey briefly twisted to see her. “Seriously, what in the world _is_ that thing-”

  
His question was suddenly immolated in the roar of flames erupting from the bottom of the metal tube, forgotten as the little flower’s eyes grew ever wider. Through the rest of the launch, none of them said a word. Toriel was too interested, Frisk too delighted, and Flowey was too busy losing his little chloro-filled mind.  
  
But when that countdown ended and the rocket rose up, one thing could clearly be heard there.  
  
“That… that’s... so incredibly cool!” Eyes like saucers, the little flower’s voice echoed off the ceiling. So much so, that he actually giggled in a sort of manic embarrassment upon realizing the size of his outburst. “S-so, is this what you were talking about earlier? This is the sort of insane stuff people can accomplish if they work hard enough?!”  
  
“Sure is!” Frisk said, looking a bit smug. “Keep at it and not even the sky's the limit!”  
  
By then, Flowey wasn’t just grinning, he was grinning like a crazy person. “That’s totally nuts. With goals like that, it’s no wonder humans spend their whole lives chasing them!”  
  
“Not just humans!” Frisk insisted. “There’s no reason Monsters couldn’t do something like this too.”  
  
“Way to try to pep me up!” Rolling his eyes, Flowey quickly threw all that encouragement aside. “There is something I’m curious about though.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Could you,” trailing off, Flowey seemed almost bashful. Like he wasn’t comfortable asking for a favor, but kept on going anyway. “Could you, maybe show me how this all works sometime?”  
\---

 

As it turned out, answering Flowey’s questions about space exploration wasn’t as simple as it sounded. This was mostly because of the sheer volume of them. The apathetic bundle of sass he was before was gone now. In his place was a chatterbox, firing off questions like a raucous machine gun.

 

“When did this happen? How many people have gone up. What kind of fuels did the rockets use anyway?”  
  
As Asgore might have put it, somebody really put a quarter in him!

It was funny too. Normally Flowey was pretty quiet, especially around Toriel. But today she was right there, and that still didn’t stop him from chatting. In fact, he kept it up all all the way through lunch. And the way home. And even through dinner. Which was around the time Toriel relented and gave him her cell-phone. That way, he could look up all those answers himself.

  
Not that she didn’t think his excitement was adorable. However, seeing as neither she or Frisk knew most of those answers, they could only spend so much time play phone tag middle-man! Letting him use the phone himself did a pretty good job of solving that.

 

“Did you know there are eleven billion earth-like planets in the galaxy?”

 

“What, no way!” Shaking her head, Frisk carefully put down the scissors she was working with. “That’s not even a real number!”  
  
“Oh yeah it is!” This time it was Flowey’s turn to look smug. “I looked it up, so there!”  
  
Letting out a snort, Frisk shook her head and went back to her art project. Sitting around the table in her room, the two of them were going through the process of settling in for the night. Flowey was too excited for that though, and kept on browsing Mom’s smartphone looking for space stuff.  
  
She didn’t mind though. This was exactly what she wanted from the very start.  
  
“Okay, that’s way more than I thought there was!” Try as she might, Frisk couldn’t even imagine there being so many planets. Thankfully, another thought derailed that one before she managed to give herself a headache. “Wait, could there be Monsters on any of those planets?”

 

“Space Monsters.” Hearing that made Flowey’s eyes light up. “That would be so freaking cool!”  
  
“What, would they go around eating stars or something?”  
  
“I dunno,” Flowey said with a shrug. “How big are they again?”  
  
“Huge!” Grinning, Frisk stretched her hands out as far as she could. She actually didn’t know how big stars were. But everything in space seemed to be mind-bogglingly big. So, it seemed like a safe bet. “No Monster could eat that much!”  
  
“Clearly you’ve never seen how much ketchup the Smiley Trashbag goes through!”  
  
“I have, actually. That poor ketchup pump never saw it coming!” Pinching the bridge of her nose, Frisk found herself wincing at the memory. That was the first and only time she had ever seen a fast food place implement a “ _No Refills_ ” policy on condiments. “But listen, you shouldn’t be so mean to him. Uncle Sans is really trying to improve himself these days.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Flowey tried to look skeptical at the claim, but sincere curiosity emerged instead. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that guy since getting here. What’s good ole Chuckles up to these days?”  
  
“He went on a trip around the world.”  
  
“Really? That lazy bag of bones!?”

 

“Yeah, it surprised me too.” One day, Sans just announced that there was something he had to check and took off. He did try putting a happy spin on it, but Frisk got the impression this was about more than just seeing the sites. “Even before that, he was doing pretty good though. He cleaned himself up and started sleeping less. I think he was starting to get healthier too.”

“Wait, you mean his HP finally went up?! Oh noo, he’s getting ahead of me!” Groaning, Flowey made a face like biting into dog salad, before sighing in resignation. “I guess it makes sense though. He’s out there moving forward, while I’m here doing nothing. How could anything grow like that?”  
  
Hearing that, Frisk couldn’t help but sigh. “It’s only been a month. Don’t be so hard on yourself!”  
  
“I guess you’re right,” still looking unsatisfied, Flowey chewed on his lower lip. His agitation giving way to quieter emotions only very slowly. “So Frisk,” he asked looking thoughtful. “You and I, we’re both pretty stubborn right?”

 

“Sure we are!” she nodded. Personally, she liked to think of it as determined, but she wasn’t about to nitpick. “We’re both iron-willed. Once we make our minds up, we can accomplish anything!”

Letting out a breath, Flowey stared through the window at the night sky. “Do you really think that’s true though? Maybe, if I set my mind to it. Do you think I could do something really difficult?”

 

Looking up from her project, Frisk studied her friends face. He didn’t look upset or anything. In fact it was almost the opposite. But, there was still something about the way he was looking at the moon that seemed almost melancholic. As far as she knew, there were only a few subjects that could do that; and only one of them seemed likely at the moment.

 

“You mean... like getting your soul back?”  
  
Blinking, Flowey stared at her like she’d grown another head or something. “No, I said difficult not impossible! I was talking about joining the space program, going to the moon!”  
  
Hard as it was for Frisk to believe, It seemed like she’d been thinking about his soul a lot more than he had. “A flower on the moon,” thinking about it, she couldn’t help but grin. It was just too much of a coincidence for anything else. “Alright,” she said as she clapped her hands together. “Why not both?”

 

Hearing that, Flowey gasped in a mock shock horror. “Oh no. It’s finally happened. Frisk has lost her marbles!”

 

“I have not!” she said, half suppressing a laugh. “Look, I’ll call Alphys about it tomorrow. She knows everything about you already. So, it’s not like it’s going to hurt to ask.”

 

“Fine,” Flowey said, letting out a resigned breath. “Seems like a waste of time, but if you say so. What about the whole moon thing though?”

 

“You're, probably going to need an education for that.” Frisk didn’t want to say anything, but the idea of sending Flowey to school raised all kinds of alarm bells. They’d have to see if there was something they could do to help him before that.

 

“Alright but after that!” Ignoring the issue, Flowey kept plowing on ahead. “If I study hard and do well, do you think maybe they’d let me go there someday? It’s not like I’d take up a lot of room!”

 

“Sure, why not?” Not knowing what else to do, Frisk kinda shrugged. “You said it yourself, we’re both really stubborn. If we’re determined enough I’m sure we can figure out something!”

 

“Thanks,” Flowey said smiling. “For humoring me that is. It’s nice to keep the dream going.”

 

“Don’t be such a downer!” Letting out a breath, Frisk reached across the table to grab a yellow crayon. “Going to the moon, getting your soul back. It might not be as unrealistic as it seems”

 

“Hey, if you say so!” still smiling, the tiny little flower rolled his eyes. “Hey, what are you working on there anyway?” No longer glued to Toriel’s cell-phone, Flowey finally noticed Frisk was busy with something. Something that involved a whole lot of glue and construction paper.

 

“It’s, not exactly finished yet.” Feeling a bit sheepish, Frisk debated showing him for a whole five seconds. “Be gentle okay, what do you think?” Picking it up, she flipped the paper around so her friend could see it.

 

From a purely technical standpoint, it wasn’t terribly special. It was just a black sheet of paper with a crudely cut white circle in the middle of it. Around that circle, an array of yellow crayon stars all but littered the image. With the pattern drawn in thicker and uneven in places, in large part due to how unfinished it was.  
  
But for all its rough and simple artistry, it was clear Frisk had put her heart into it. Because sitting there at the top of that circle was a green and yellow figure, looking into the infinite as it sat there in his flowerpot.

 

“A flower on the moon!” Still beaming, Frisk pointed at a figure next to it. Something that looked like a little human in an astronaut suit, which was clearly a stand in for herself. “So,” she asked while practically bouncing in her seat. “What do you think?”  
  
“Well, it’s nice,” Flowey said a bit warily. “But aren’t you taking this a little far? It’s fun to dream, but going to the moon, getting my soul back? That’s going to be hard, maybe even impossible!”

 

“We don’t do these things because they’re easy!” Shrugging with her shoulders, Frisk flipped the paper back around and went looking for a crayon. “We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And you know what? I think we’re better off for doing it.”  
  
“Huh, huh, huh.” sitting there in thought, the tiny flower looked around and slowly scrunched up his brows. “You know, I think I might have heard something like that earlier.”

“You’re probably just imagining it.” Playing innocent, Frisk stifled a grin and pulled out the crayon she was searching for. Maybe she had borrowed from that documentary, but she meant every word of it. They’d try for the moon, or anything else that gave Flowey’s life meaning. And if somehow, they came up short, the search for Asriel’s soul would still continue.

 

With that promise in mind, Frisk bent over to sign her art. All the while hoping for a better future.  
  
“Alright.” Feeling satisfied, Frisk stood up and stretched. “I think that’s enough for now. Let's you and me get ready for bed.”

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> For my readers, I would like to thank you for your patience. For this side story, I wanted to push my abilities as far as I could. Between that and taking a break from writing, this ended up taking far longer than I expected. That being said, I do hope you enjoyed it, and I'll be getting back to work on the next chapter of Undertale: Long Road immediately.


End file.
